Rick Burnes › Comments

This isn't really an investment, it's a sponsorship. CNN will not get it's money back. Hard to make money in local ad-supported businesses. - Rick Burnes

"Hi Saqib, I'm a HubSpotter working on a redesign of our homepage. Two thoughts on your comments: (1) I couldn't agree more! (2) What you see is the homepage of a startup that is focused like a laser on the development of game-changing SaaS tools and high quality content to market those tools. The website that serves as the homebase/entry point for that software and content has been less of a priority." - Rick Burnes

"I don't doubt it -- I think even those of us who absolutely get new media/the web/social reflexively assume advertising is how you generate revenue b/c it's the way media always has generated revenue. But I think that will be less true going forward. We're changing from a world where companies pay for the right to interrupt people, to one where they pay for the tools they need to attract customers." - Rick Burnes

"Good interview. These guys are both so wonderful to follow. They are excellent examples of the types of filters they talk about. One quibble: I disagree w/ Steven when he says that all this information opens up the ability for business to target people in their geographic area. It doesn't. It opens up the ability for these businesses to **interact** w/ people in their geographic area. Targeting means interrupting and shoving information where it's not wanted or productive. Interacting means offering information where it's wanted and useful." - Rick Burnes

Nothing new, but a good, simple reminder for those of us trying to build companies. - Rick Burnes

Nothing new, but a good, simple reminder for those of us trying to build companies. - Rick Burnes

"Yes, this triangle is fascinating and full of opportunity -- but it's a stretch to say that these are "THE" big trends. It's a very consumer-focused framework. Consumers are leading the changes on the web, but there's a growing wave of business-related changes (in the way businesses market, sell and operate) that will lead to huge new value creation." - Rick Burnes

"Chris, nice post on a great topic. I don't see the distinction you draw so starkly. I agree that the change in value of MSFT, Apple & Sony is attributable to the departure of great leaders. But I also wonder if these leaders would have been great in different times. Would Bill Gates be able to do similarly remarkable work if he was starting today instead of 40 years ago? The world has changed and a different set of skills is required. Maybe he would have adapted. Maybe not." - Rick Burnes

"Interesting. I assumed that when you were talking about intent generation on media sites, you were saying that the display/cpm ads are doing the intent generation. In fact, you're saying that it's the content. In that case, I think you're exactly right. Media sites have no good way to harvest the intent they generate through their content. I don't think media co's will ever find a robust solution to this problem. I think the only folks who can harvest the type of intent generation you're talking about are the vendors themselves -- which is why it increasingly makes sense for the vendors to publish the content." - Rick Burnes

"But there's a bigger change taking place: Content sites are doing less intent generation. (What kind of intent can plausibly be generated when I'm reading about Healthcare on NYTimes.com.) Instead of buying difficult-to-deliver intent from media companies, the vendors themselves are doing the intent generation. See here: http://ow.ly/rBhl http://ow.ly/rBiw http://ow.ly/rBjk This leaves media companies w/o much of a business model, but that's the world we live in." - Rick Burnes

"Certainly, this is commendable. The next steps are to: (1) Add a personal voice to this type of proclamation. Somebody wrote it; we should know who. Who stands by these words? (2) Setup a blog where people interested in this type of thing can have a dialog w/ the company. I can subscribe to their feed of news releases, but if they were really open, transparent and customer-focused I would be able to subscribe to a feed of conversations, ie a blog." - Rick Burnes

"Hallicious -- I didn't know that that's how this thing got started. If that's indeed the case -- that UO decide to sell the shirts after reading the comments on Amazon, then you're absolutely right. It's as if they were fine to be joking around about it when it was an inside joke, but when it's out in the open they don't want to associate themselves w/ it. Rick" - Rick Burnes

"Nice piece, Chris. I can see why Urban Outfitters did what they did. The comments raise all sorts of class stereotypes that are hard for a business to tolerate. What if they were stereotypes about race or sexuality? I doubt there would be objections to the deletions. Is such a distinction fair and good? We like our businesses to be human and personable, and understanding a joke is part of that. If a business like Urban Outfitters "gets their panties in a bunch for nothing" we feel more distant from them. But think about the victims of class stereotypes in the comments -- they feel even more distant." - Rick Burnes

"Well done! That's great news. Please keep up up-to-date on things at Second Time Around. Rick" - Rick Burnes

"This is a cool widget. Would be fun to have a dashboard accessible via the widget that showed you not only the most recent visitors, but also the people who visit most frequently, comment, etc." - Rick Burnes

"Amen. One of your best posts in the 4 yrs I've been reading. The traditional events you're talking about don't reflect the spirit of the web we're all building." - Rick Burnes

"The fact that the NYT didn't setup 301 redirects from the IHT articles to their new locations is bad. The fact that nobody from the NYT is commenting in this thread, explaining themselves, is really bad." - Rick Burnes

"I agree -- I don't think there is a style, and I think that's b/c there are very few big consumer web apps based here. The software industry here is more B2B focused." - Rick Burnes

"Also interesting to consider where Boston falls in the spectrum: It doesn't do consumer web apps. It's a B2B software town. There are exceptions (TripAdvisor; Conduit), but the volume is not consumer-facing." - Rick Burnes

Quality wins. - Rick Burnes

"Interesting. I think you're right about media success. And they corollary is probably that media mediocrity means a lot less revenue and a lot less profit -- super news for those of us that consume media." - Rick Burnes

"An irony here is that traditional publishers bash the web for its supposed lack of serendipity (the daily me argument). Of course, it's the aggregators, which they also bash, that do the most to help solve this problem. That said, a question for you: Do you think aggregation is a different (or better) business than content? Seems to me that it's pretty much the same. You have infinite competition (everybody with a tumblelog, FB or Twitter account is an aggregator), so the best you can do is lead a niche. That's what Digg does, that's what Techmeme does, etc. Hard to imagine how either of those services grows beyond their niche." - Rick Burnes

"John -- Great post. I think you're right on the money with your advice. A couple things I'd add: (1) Great content, published and distributed on the web, is also the best way to improve your company's SEO. More content, more opportunities to win the SEO lottery. (2) I suggest people try to get themselves into a "content mindset." Going to a conference? Take a video camera and interview some colleagues. Just spent 20 minutes answering a question on LinkedIn or in Email? Chances are it's a blog post? If you look at everything for its content potential, that content list up above will become a lot less daunting." - Rick Burnes

Amen, Wade. - Rick Burnes

"Nice post. I like the concept of earned media. At HubSpot we call this Inbound Marketing. The idea is that if you create a lot of quality content that useful and interesting to your customers, they'll find you via social media, search engines, etc. If it's done right, this can be a lot cheaper more effective than the alternative -- finding customers (outbound marketing)." - Rick Burnes

"Agh! Can't make it today ... next time you're up." - Rick Burnes

"Agh! Can't make it today ... next time you're up." - Rick Burnes

On the plus side, the site appears to be an elegant online version of a newspaper/TV station. They report the news, you consume it, more or less. On the negative side, the site appears to be an elegant online version of a newspaper/TV station. - Rick Burnes

"Will the value of SEO change -- or just how you do it? As SEO increasingly includes search.twitter.com and facebook search, I think the idea of SEO will grow to include optimization of those networks. And to do that in a "durable" way, I think you need to be an active, trusted contributor to those communities. This is part of the reason we're building free Grader tools (www.grader.com) at HubSpot. They give people a way to assess the quality of their contributions to these networks. Maybe this broader version of SEO should be SSEO -- social search engine optimization." - Rick Burnes

He's right ... - Rick Burnes

Also right on ... - Rick Burnes